Archive for January, 2013

The vast majority of the world’s books, music, films, television and art, you will never see. It’s just numbers.

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Now, everything gets dropped into our laps, and there are really only two responses if you want to feel like you’re well-read, or well-versed in music, or whatever the case may be: culling and surrender.

Happy long weekend! I got you an article about death. And crossword puzzles about death!

Posted on 13 Jan, 2013 •
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Pixar’s in-house theory is: Be wrong as fast as you can. Mistakes are an inevitable part of the creative process, so get right down to it and start making them. Even great ideas are wrecked on the road to fruition and then have to be painstakingly reconstructed. “Every Pixar film was the worst motion picture ever made at one time or another,” Lasseter said. “People don’t believe that, but it’s true. But we don’t give up on the films.”

Hugely successful people tend to say self-deprecating stuff like this when they go on “Charlie Rose.” But I heard something quite genuine in Lasseter’s remarks, an acknowledgment of just how deep into the muck of mediocrity a creative project can sink as it takes those first vulnerable steps from luxurious abstraction to unforgiving reality.

“All too often, brands fall victim to the content marketing pitfall of highlighting only their own milestones, products, and customer interactions, creating streams of content that seem stale and retrospective.”

“In creating its digital presence, Kate Spade has managed to convert the je ne sais quoi of its meticulously designed physical visual merchandising (read: eye-catching store windows in SoHo and on Fifth Avenue) and products into a decidedly on-brand experience. Using its blog, which is integrated prominently into its main e-commerce site, as well as varied social media presences, the Kate Spade team has developed and maintained a voice and visual point of view that reinforce the brand while avoiding heavy-handedness.”